Five minutes with Colin Montgomerie

Interview with the 2010 Ryder Cup Captain

The man who so successfully steered Europe to victory at Celtic
Manor in 2010 is as busy as ever, and had only recently returned
from a life-changing trip to visit troops in Afghanistan when he met
up with Gi’s John Hopkins during the ‘Desert Swing’

Gi: It’s just over a year from your
triumph with the Europe team at
the Ryder Cup and you have obviously
reflected on it a lot. What
were two or three things that
made the difference at Celtic
Manor?

CM: Complete preparation and
support that I had from my backroom
staff. They were the
strongest that anyone has ever
had and I wasn’t frightened of
employing people who were as
good if not better than I was. I
wasn’t fearful.

Gi: Your attention to detail was
exceptional – changing your players'
beds at the last minute and
having road humps outside the
team’s bedrooms removed in the
days before the event for example.

CM: I wanted everything for the
team that I would have wanted for
myself and I went through everything
even the short journey from
the hotel to the course. I can’t
stand speed bumps at the best of
times and those at Celtic Manor
were very, very severe.

Gi: Is there something you got
away with or something you would
like to have changed but didn’t?

CM: In hindsight I would have
done more with the golf course.
We would have done better if I
had done that. I would have
allowed the rough to grow to get
more of an advantage from how
straight we drove the ball. But I
left it as it was. I didn’t want to
create something that was odd. I
wanted to win completely honestly
and fairly, not by tricking the
course up.

Gi: Name one player you expect to
be in the Ryder Cup though others
might not?

CM: Simon Dyson. He is confident.
He believes in himself. He is a lot
better than people give him credit
for. He came quite close last time.

Gi: At the end of last year Tiger Woods won his first tournament for over two years. Do you think he will reach Jack Nicklaus’s record of
18 professional major championships
or even pass it?

CM: No he won’t. Five years ago I
would have said he would have
done but not now. The competition
is enormous. He might win
one or even a couple. He will have
to have Seve Ballesteros’s total in
major championships [five victories]
to pass Nicklaus’s 18 and he
is now, what, 36. No he won’t do
it. Mind you, if he does it will be
monumental.

Gi: Who would make up your
dream fourball?

CM: My personal one would be
Mum, Dad and my brother
Douglas. If I were to choose
famous golfers it would be Ben
Hogan, Arnold Palmer and Jack
Nicklaus.

Gi: Who do you respect most in the world of golf?

CM:Bernhard Langer by a mile. He has such faith and is so devoted
to his family. He has never
done anything wrong. He is a complete
professional on and off the
course, in his appearance, his
demeanour, the way he acts. He is
the complete professional.

Gi: And outside golf?

CM: Margaret Thatcher. I thought she was superb. But I have a very
high regard for those people who
run charities and the people who
give to charities. I know a bit
about this from starting a charity
in the name of my mother who
died of cancer in 1991. That charity
is the Elizabeth Montgomerie
Foundation, which works to raise
money for cancer victims. To give
to others rather than to yourself is
rare and admirable.

Gi: Towards the end of last year
you, Eddie Bullock, the captain,
and Parnell Reilly, immediate past
captain, of the PGA spent some
time with British troops in
Afghanistan. What was that like?

CM: Superb. It was eye-opening
and humbling. I was a bit nervous.
You get your dog tags at the airport.
Mine said: Montgomerie,
Church of Scotland, Protestant
and my blood group – B positive
at the top. Before we left they had
asked for my dental records. That
made me think. If I got so badly
burned they could only tell who I
was by my dental records! The
plane I went in was going straight
back with four coffins on board.
That was sobering. When we landed
I tried to call Gaynor to tell her
we had arrived but all communication
was cut off until the family of
the dead soldiers were notified.
You don’t want them to find out
on Facebook.

Gi: Why did you go?

CM: To promote golf worldwide. We
did a clinic on a firing range. Titleist
were good to us so were Callaway
and Ping. We left thousands of balls
with the troops. I was looking at it
from a team environment and how
everyone – the Army, Navy and Air
Force – works as a team to keep the
guys on the front line alive. Just getting
there was interesting. We flew
from Dubai to Camp Bastion on
board a C-17 plane carrying a helicopter.
The plane had lots of pallets
of stuff all on it. The plane was big
and black and windowless. I have
never been in a plane without any
windows before. We had to put helmets
on and bulletproof vests as we
got into Afghanistan air space. It
was so dark that all I could see was
the luminous watch of the man sitting
next to me. The plane came in
very high until the last minute when
it went into a dive and landed with
a bang. Then it raced off the runway
for obvious reasons. You suddenly
realise “right lads, we’re here
in a war zone."

Gi: How long a trip was it?

CM: One day to get in, one to get
out and three days there.

Gi: What was the accommodation
like?

CM: Definitely not five-star. Bloody
hell! If that was the VIP lot then I
wouldn’t like to be a private. Two
showers for the VIPs and there
must have been 80 of them. Two
into 80 doesn’t go very well. We
were fed very well. You could eat
like a horse. No alcohol was allowed on the base, only fruit
juice and water.

Gi: Did you go anywhere other
than Camp Bastion?

CM: We went to Kabul though not
to the golf course. That has been
heavily mined. Some people play it
but nobody looks for a ball in the
rough. I felt uneasy in Kabul, racing
through the city in a bulletproof
armour. I’m going: “hang on
a minute. What are we doing
here?"

Gi: If you had been to Afghanistan
before the Ryder Cup would it
have helped your captaincy?

CM: Yes. I’d have noticed the teamwork
first hand. I’d have got
videos of that teamwork and
shown it at team meetings. It
would have reminded my team
how other people work for each
and how to get results.

Gi: What’s your schedule looking
like in 2012?

CM: I played 21 last year and I’ll
add another four tournamrnts in
2012. I’ve got to practice more. I’ve
gone to an event and got myself
three over after seven holes on the
first day and I’m thinking to
myself: what am I doing here?
Back in the nineties I believed I
was going to a tournament to win.
Now I’m going for a place. I have
to get some self belief back. I have
to get it into my head that I can
still do it. I’m still getting four or
five birdies in a round. The trouble is I am also making four or five
mistakes. It’s the mistakes I have
got to cut out. Also, my short
game is not as tight as it was.

Gi: You will be 49 this June. Will
you play senior golf?

CM: I said I would never play senior
golf but I am going to. I turn 50
in June 2013 and in July I will play
in the Senior British Open at Royal
Birkdale. If I win I might go to the
US Senior Open. I don’t fancy
going to qualifying school [for the
senior tour in the US]. I went to
qualifying school for the PGA Tour
once, in 1987, and I don’t fancy
doing that again.

Gi: Do you Tweet?

CM: I started to use it to help my
charity among other things but
then someone said something
rude about me and so I don’t do it
any more.

Gi: Is there one gadget you could
not live without?

CM: My Victorinox Swiss Army
pocket knife. I was given it as a
present 20 years ago and it is
invaluable. It goes everywhere with
me in my pocket, in my golf bag.
You can use it for opening bottles,
repairing pitch marks, fiddling
with things. It’s great.

Gi: If you could change one rule of
golf what would it be?

CM: Allowing the use of the belly
putter. It’s just wrong.

Reproduced with kind permission of Golf International Magazine

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